posted 06-24-2020 03:54 PM            

The author and friends make a clandestine photo tour of the now disused parts of Baikonur to make a record of the last vestiges of the remaining Russian space shuttles, slowly rusting away in their hangers. Photography is superb (good for model makers). The book also has some very good shots of the site and surrounding area.

posted 06-24-2020 05:37 PM               

The Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was created by the Soviets in the 1950s. It was from Baikonur in 1988 that the first Soviet spaceplane, Buran, was launched, in response to the United States Space Shuttle.

The Buran programme would officially end in 1993 during the presidency of Boris Yeltsin, with only one Buran launch ever taking place ― in 1988. Thereafter, parts of the Baikonur Cosmodrome fell into disuse, notably the sites connected with the launch of these Soviet craft. The two shuttles that were completed remain abandoned there, laid to rest in this atmospheric place.

This is the first time that photographs of these spectacular locations have been published in a book.

Jonk travelled 20km through the Kazakh desert under cover of night, entered the hangars clandestinely, and spent three nights there under the radar of military security to produce a truly incredible photographic reportage of what is considered today the world's most important urban exploration site.

• Hardcover: 192 pages
  
• Jonglez Publishing (April 7, 2020)
  
• ISBN-10: 2361953773
  
• ISBN-13: 978-2361953775

posted 06-24-2020 05:53 PM               

I visited Baikonur in 2002, and was there just two weeks before a hangar roof caved in destroying the Buran flight article. Though our trip was very likely more expensive than Jonk's "urban exploration," we were invited to explore the area with a tour guide, and saw multiple Buran vehicles and the Energia launch site without the need for subterfuge.

I have heard it suggested that since Jonk's exploits went viral, Roscosmos has tightened its control over the Cosmodrome and even invited guests now have less access than before. To be fair, not all of the new restrictions are likely the result of this photographer (and others like him), but the timing points to his actions having had some effect.

(That is, if his exploits are as described. I have also heard that his access may have been arranged and that the claims of clandestine moves in the dark of night were fabricated to increase clicks and, I suppose now, book sales.)

posted 06-26-2020 03:25 PM               

Probably for the happy few who went or will go to Baikonur (I am one), there was or will be no possibility to visit this building, as this seems to be totally unsecure; one next day the building will collapse, destroying the test articles, and for all those who can not go there themselves, now they can see these beautiful pictures, which deliver a grim image of the past of the soviet Buran Program, and also the Soviet Union.